The Misadventure
by Cryptic Metaphor
Summary: Walking alone near Reaver's mansion on the hill proved to be more dangerous than first thought. OCxReaver
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER** **– I do not own Fable. Lionhead does. I just own this story and any OC's I feel like putting in it. Hope ya' enjoy.**

Chapter 1

It was late, the sun was setting off beyond the hillside and the shadows danced as they got longer, inch by inch. I was about seventeen years old, a suitable age to marry and have kids in this day and age. I was also alone, no husband, no parents, not even any friends. I had just come, all by my lonesome, to this area seemingly out of nowhere. While traveling to nowhere in particular, I'd run into a strange gypsy who had urged my strongly to come to this area. Seeing as how I had nowhere to go anyway, I chose to humor her.

Since I've been here, I've heard and learned many things but there was one thing I'd heard most, above all else. Up in a mansion on a large hill lived a man like no other, he'd be quick to shoot you down and he had quite the reputation with the ladies, among other things. The locals said that this man's name was one not to be used or taken lightly and most of them were too scared to even tell me his name.

Supposedly, he wore a top hat with goggles around the bottom, a long white jacket with fur around the collar and a holster for a gun around one thigh. He was also said to walk with a cane, though he didn't need one, and had a tattoo of a small black heart under one eye.

I was walking along a pathway at night, my sword at my hip. I never go anywhere without my sword, despite my gender, because before my father died he'd taught me how to use it and had told me that it was never safe to go anywhere without it.

As I was walking in the relative darkness, the moon and stars my only company, I spotted a small figure off in the distance. It was walking towards me and I, almost unconsciously, moved my hand towards the hilt of my sword on my left hip until I realized that it was just on old lady.

When I walked past her, she stopped and looked at me. This caused me to falter in my step and turn to do the same to her.

"Don't you know that you're not supposed to be out at night, girl? There are balverines in these parts." She paused. "If not the balverines, you'd think he'd be enough to keep you away."

I looked down at the old woman from my tell height of 6'8". "Excuse me? The same could go for you."

The old woman just shook her head as if she didn't hear me. "The man that lives over yonder in his mansion ought to be enough to keep you away from here, it's dangerous."

I blinked down at her. She, this defenseless old woman, was telling me that it was dangerous out here? She seemed to know a lot about the man in the mansion, though. "Who exactly is this man? I've never seen him before." I pried. Hopefully, I'd at least be able to learn his name from her. So far, nobody would tell me.

The woman thought about my question for what seemed to me like an hour before beckoning me to come closer to her. I leaned in to hear her and she whispered in my ear. "Reaver."

With that, the old woman walked on and I watched her go for a moment before turning on my heel to set off once more in my original direction.

It wasn't even ten seconds before I heard a startled and pained cry from behind me. When I turned, I drew my sword with my left hand and saw a little down the pathway two balverines gorging themselves hungrily over the limp form of what I assumed to be the old woman I'd spoken to not even twenty seconds before their attack.

I scowled at their dark forms, humanoid yet with hair covering their entire bodies. They both had a short, almost rat-like, tail and deadly teeth and claws.

"Hey! Get off her!" I shout at them. One looks up at me and sniffs the air as if deciding whether or no it should attack me. Whatever it smelled, it must have smelled just so that it decided to attack me because it leapt into the air and disappeared.

Anticipating the impending attack, I pivot on my right foot and swing my sword in a wide arc. I had fought these monsters before so I knew the basics of how they fight. I was rewarded with a yelp of pain from the beast as my sword cut across its abdomen.

That was when the other balverine, which had still been feasting over the old woman, raised its head and looked at me.

I beheaded the first of the beasts as the second one began to run full speed ahead at me. It leaped at me with claws extended and knocked me on my back. The second of the balverines, angered at my actions with the first, reared back it's head and pulled back it's arms so that it may strike me across my chest and face with those deadly claws.

Before it could do that and send me to an early grave, I quickly took my sword by both hands and stabbed it in the neck and felt it grow limp. I made it fall to the side so that I could wiggle my way out from under the monster, bloody and tired.

I looked over at what was left of the old lady and decided that I should move the bodies off the road at least. When I did that, I looked at them for the last time before moving on as if I wasn't all bloody and tired. Adrenaline still coursed through my veins, yes, but its affect was wearing off steadily as I just walked on, nothing going to sway me from my target.

Have you ever gotten that creeping sensation on your back that makes your skin crawl, the feeling that you are being watched? Well, that sensation finally got through the adrenaline to me and I felt the need to look around. Seeing nothing, I shrug to myself and move on, though the sensation did not go away.

Up ahead, the mansion came into view and I smile. I had never seen the actual mansion before but I know that it must be it. The mansion had some sort of garden in front of it, full of flowers, and before that was some sort of iron gate with an emblem in it. The emblem was a backwards R with a forward facing R back to back with a gear centered behind them. Now knowing that Reaver is his name, I assume that to be his symbol.

In front of the gate stood a guard leaning back against his post. It didn't take me long to realize that the man was sleeping on the job. I raised an eyebrow at this, surely this oh so fearsome man that I'd heard so much about would not tolerate such behavior from the guard outside his house, not that I really cared. All I had come here for was to see if I could get a glimpse of the man, now known to me as Reaver, that I'd heard so much about. I just wanted to see him, just once, and then I'd hightail my way back to the cozy little room I'd rented from some couple who'd had the space and needed the money.

I went around to the side of the house where the fence ended against a rocky slope and prepared myself to try and climb the fence there, deciding against the direct approach because I didn't want to risk waking up the guard.

As I pulled back my sleeves and was just about to take hold of the cold iron of the fence to heave myself up and over it, I heard something from behind me. It was a voice.

"My, my. What do we have here?"

Before I could even turn around to see who or what it was, there was a crack against the back of my skull that sent an explosion of pain throughout my body. Whoever it was had struck me in the head with a blunt object, presumably the back of a gun. As I fell to the ground, I didn't even get the see my attacker before my vision went blank…

**-~TS~-**

I awoke sometime in the afternoon of the next day to find myself facedown in some kind of carpet. When I opened my eyes, there was the floor of someone's house. Groggily, I use my hands to push myself into a sitting position and manage to give myself that awful feeling in my head that you sometimes get when you abruptly stand up after a long time.

I move my left hand up to rub my head and I finally notice my surroundings and, more importantly, that my one and only weapon was not where it should be.

Quickly, I stand up and look around myself. I was in some sort of room where there were quite a few beds lined down both side of the long walls and there were one or two other people. Beside me was one bed that had some odd-looking uniform on it. Apparently, the uniform was more important that I was because I'd been put on the floor and it had been put on the bed. The uniform was a black and white, almost maid-like, dress that was clearly made too short and shorter in the back than in the front.

To this, I raise one slender eyebrow and I feel a tap on my shoulder and I whip around, managing to scare the living hell out of another girl. She looked up at me with wide eyes. Clearly, she was a few years older than me but my abnormally tall height set me higher above most else. "So your awake?"

I gave her a look. "Well, obviously." My sarcastic attitude was still functioning properly, as always. "Where the hell am I?" I ask her, with clearly no regard for the fact that a lady should not be saying such things.

The girl takes a step back from me, obviously terrified by the fact that I'd ask her such a thing. "Y-you're at Master R-Reaver's mansion."

I give her a blank stare, not fully believing her. "I'm where?"

She gives me this look as if to say, 'you'd make me say it again?' as if saying his name is like a plague. "Your at…" She paused and decided to whisper it this time. "Master Reaver's mansion." This time, the girl managed to say it without stuttering.

I blink at her in disbelief. "How the devil did I land myself here?" I ask, as if she could tell me.

Surprisingly enough, she actually knew. "Well… Last night when Master Reaver went on a walk outside to get some air, he must have caught you around the mansion or something."

I curse at my own stupidity, now realizing what had happened. I should have been more attentive and paid more attention to that feeling of being watched. If it was Reaver that had 'caught' me, he must have been watching me from the start of when I got that creeping feeling, when I was fighting those balverines. The damn creep had been spying on me that whole time! God knows what he may have done before or while he brought me to his house and dumped me here.

I look over at the uniform on the bed, assuming it's supposed to be mine. From what I'd heard about this so-called Reaver, I was rather surprised he didn't just undress me and put me in it already. I involuntarily shuddered at the thought and decided that I wouldn't put it past him to do such a thing.

I pointed at the uniform. "I'm guessing that's supposed to be mine?"

The girl nodded her head. "Master Reaver said that you were to put it on and then help me and some other girls make his dinner when you woke up."

I looked at her for a moment and let that sink in. So this guy, whom I'd never even met or seen before, wanted me to be his little servant and help do things for him around his mansion. Not only that, but wear this whorish uniform while I'm at it? Sure. Fine. I'd play along for now. I'd made up my mind. May as well go ahead with it for now, I could look for some way out of this place while I'm at it. Looking around the room, I noticed that it had three windows on one wall and one window on a wall connected to it but that the window all had iron bars on them as if we were caged animals.

I scowled at the girl and turned to the uniform. It didn't take me long to change out of the bloody clothes I had been wearing and into it. Changing out my combat boots, men's brown pants, dark green shirt and my belt where my sword used to hang for the dress, stockings and heels that had been laid out for me. Not quite sure what to do with my old clothes, I put them under the low bed and turned to find the girl, patiently waiting for me to finish up.

I looked down at her from my height of 6'8" plus these heels; I was now about a foot taller than the girl with the added inch and a half or so of the heels.

She was staring at me and it was making me a bit self-conscious. When I looked down at myself, I found that the dress actually fit me perfectly, as if whoever had laid my clothes out had measured me. The top of the dress had a white area around the breasts with black around it that seemed to highlight the fact that, without a loose men's shirt on like usual, I actually did have rather large breasts. The dress's front came to a stop about midway down my thighs and I didn't even want to know where it stopped in the back, although it felt like it was around half an inch to an inch higher in the back than in the front. The stockings were knee high and striped black and white and the heels were black.

I gave her a look and, flustered, she gestured for me to follow her before she turned and began walking towards the only door in the room. She stopped a few times to make sure I was following her before we reached the door and she opened it. Upon opening the door, I saw a somewhat long hallway, which, after closing the door behind us, we marched along side by side.

The hallway opened up into a large room with assorted paintings and things adorning the walls. I didn't get to get a good look at it because the girl hurried along and led me all the way to the kitchen. I studied the room and noticed the small windows, not large enough to fit through, and everything else about it. How in hell was I, trained more for battle than for household needs, going to supposedly help prepare some guy's dinner?

The girl, seeming to sense the fact that I was practically clueless on what to do, told me to just stand kind of off to the side and peel potatoes so I did, not wanting to interfere with what she and two other girls were doing. I had noticed that there were an awful lot of girls in the same uniform as me around here but there defiantly wasn't a lack of men either. Whoever this guy was, he didn't seem to be one to discriminate against the guys as servants, not that it made him better in any way in my eyes. No, in my eyes he was still an ass.

Eventually, me having done a few easy jobs, we managed to make a dinner for this Reaver guy and put it on a silver platter, complete with a little silver bowl-like covering with a knob on the top.

The girl, who'd been kind of like my guide so far, turned to me and held out the platter and I stared blankly at it. "Master Reaver said he wanted you to be the one to bring his dinner to him."

I blinked. "He said what?"

She extended the platter to me. "He said he wants you to be the one to deliver his dinner to him." I stared at her for a moment before, unthinkingly, taking the platter from her. "I'll lead the way."

She must have seen the way I felt because she was quick to try her best at comforting me. "Oh, you'll be fine. All you have to do is go in, set out the food for him, take off the cover and set it to the side, step back, bow, ask if he needs anything else and you're free to go!" As if that were so simple. "Don't worry, it'll be easy."

Famous last words.


	2. Meeting the Man

**Disclaimer ~ I do not own Fable. Lionhead does. Thanks for the reviews, everyone. I'm so sorry that it took this long to type this up. I've been extremely lazy and I lost my fan fiction notebook for a while. D: I will admit, the chapters from now on will most likely be shorter but they will also, HOPEFULLY, get to you quicker.**

Chapter 2

As I followed the girl to what I assumed would be a dining room, I felt an impending sense of doom in the pit of my chest. Supposedly, I'd be delivering food to the man that'd caught me snooping around his mansion. Who knows what could come of that? So, to counter that feeling, I decided to throw out question after question at the girl.

"What's your name?" I asked, seemingly out of nowhere. The girl hadn't bothered to tell me yet so I figured I might ask that first.

"Mary, what's yours?" She cast a sideways glance over her shoulder at me as we walked along, a bit too fast for my taste, at least, at this moment.

I considered whether I should tell her my actual name or not. Then again, it may be easier for me to just tell her. I mean, what harm could come from a name, really? "My name is Estrella, but you can call me Esa if you want."

Mary smiled at me before going back to looking ahead of herself. "That's a pretty name."

"Indeed, it is." I looked away from Mary, the memory of my parent's death, carried out by mercenary's hands swarming back to me, playing out like a roll of photographs in my mind's eye. The last lone word to come from my Father's mouth had been my name. It has plagued my memory ever since. I'd decided that I'd kill the mercenaries that did it if I ever saw them again. But that had been over four years ago now.

From that point on, we walked in relative silence, the only sound from us being our footsteps.

When we arrived in front of a pair of double doors, Mary tried her best to smile at me as she gestured towards the doors. "This is your stop."

I stared at the door handles as if they might bite me. Then, as I realized that I've never technically met this man before, so I shouldn't have a reason to fear him. At least, not yet.

With a quick intake of air and a surge of gusto, I gripped the left door handle, my right hand balancing the platter of food with ease, and swung the door open to the dining room.

Inside the dining room, everything was put neatly into place with a long table in the exact center of the room. Portraits lined the walls, like the majority of the house, depicting the man, Reaver, in various ways.

The man himself sat across the room, at the head of the table, which what I assumed to be an amused smirk on his face, almost as if he just heard something funny. "Ah, finally! My dinner has arrived. Come, come~." His voice somehow managed, after hearing it for the first time, to get on my nerves. His choice of words didn't help either.

Me being preoccupied with studying the man for a moment, Mary did me the favor of closing the door behind me, effectively shutting me in with him. Suddenly feeling like a rabbit put in a glass cage with a snake, I walked forward and gently set the plate I was carrying in front of him. And by gently, I meant noisily and sloppily because I am a terrible maid.

Wincing at the noise it caused, I removed the covering to reveal a beautifully prepared dinner, made mostly by Mary and the other servants, and placed it nearby on the table. Acting the role of the obedient servant until I could think of a way to get out of here, I bowed respectfully as I had been told before turning on my right heel to leave. As soon as I had done that, the man, anything but gently, smacked me on the bum, having the nerve for his hand linger there.

I turned back to glare at the man and was met with only an amused expression, his lips quirked up at the left in a smirk. "Why don't you sit and keep me company?" he suggests, much to my displeasure.

Glancing towards the door, I silently hoped that I would have the patience to not kill this man before he would finish his dinner. No promises.


	3. The Bad Start

**DISCLAIMER****: I do not own Fable. Lionhead does. Happy early birthday, Alexox123 and thanks for all of your reviews. New chapters will NOT be coming out as quickly as this one but I felt compelled to complete this one. ;]**

Chapter 3

Sighing under my breath, I slowly turn to face a chair near where Reaver sat, pulling it back to sit down hesitantly, laying my hands to rest in my lap. As I had sat down, I made a point of sliding my hands under myself in my best effort to not show anything, especially now that I was in the presence of Reaver himself.

He seemed to be eyeing me, studying my features as if I were some delicious pastry laid out before him for his personal taking. I made a point of pretending not to notice. "So tell me, what is your name?" he asked, calmly picking up his fork and knife to begin eating.

Allowing myself to look back at the man, I pondered his question carefully as he began to eat. Considering what I knew so far about this man, telling him my true name could be potentially more dangerous than telling Mary. On the other hand, it would be much simpler to tell him and wipe out any problems that could arise in that department. Not that I wasn't a good liar, I simply didn't want to run the risk. "My name is Estrella," I replied formally, keeping my voice even.

He nodded his head as if I needed his approval over my own name. Watching him, or more precisely, his hair, I noticed that, though it bobbed slightly, it didn't seem to get out of place at all. If I were to nod as his did, I'd probably have to swipe it back out of my eyes. Unconsciously wondering if he used some sort of magic to keep his hair in place, I was drawn from my thoughts by his next question.

"Now tell me, Estrella, why would a girl, such as yourself, be sneaking around my mansion at night, armed with a sword such as this?" As he spoke, Reaver casually reached to his opposite side from me, only to hold up my sword so that I could see it before setting it back down with a small thud against the floor.

My eyes widened and I couldn't keep my mouth from hinging open a little in a silent gasp. I probably should have expected something like this, really, but nonetheless, I was temporarily shocked.

It didn't take very long for my shock and disbelief to become my anger.

Rising to my unsteady feet, made awkward by the inch and a half tall heels I was being forced to wear, I brought my fist back before taking a wild swing at the man's face in a wide arc. Stumbling over the unfamiliar shoes I wore, my fist sailed uselessly by his face as I fell forward, bracing myself with my free hand against the table to keep from falling over the corner.

Hearing a click right next to my head as I struggled to regain composure and retract my arm from over Reaver's shoulder, I looked over at it with my eyes. As expected, I was greeting with the barrel of a gun pointed directly at my head. "Oh, Estrella, I had really hoped it would not come to this. Now, be a good girl and behave yourself." His tone implied calm and serenity but his eyes portrayed a wickedness that made her think twice about her attempted attack, albeit that thought was rather late on the draw. Not to mention that I hadn't even seen him draw his gun.

Grinding my teeth together in frustration, I could feel the heat on my cheeks as I moved to sit myself back in my original seat.

Watching him closely now, the man's lips quirked back up in that familiar smirk, foreshadowing what would probably be an almost constant employment of the facial expression. He glided his hand back down to hide the gun in a place unseen to my eyes by this angle. "Ah, that's a good girl, now back to my question…"


End file.
